He looked at Harkway. "It's also perfectly legible: no letter looks too much like any other letter. And it has a certain beauty, don't you think?" He paused. "Hasn't it struck you, Mr. Harkway, that anything our hosts do is likely to be a little more sensible and more sensitive than the human equivalent?" "I come from Reg Otay," said Harkway. "They don't have any visual arts or any written language there. But I see what you mean. What does the sign say--the same thing as the English?" "No. It says, 'Yungiwo Ren Trakru Rith.' 'Trakru rith' is Niori for 'hospitality house'--it's what they call anything that we would call tea room, or restaurant, or beer garden." "And 'Yungiwo Ren'?" "That's their version of 'Chung kuo jen'[A]--the Chinese for 'Chinese.' At first they called us all that, because most of the original immigrants were from China; but they've got over it now--they found out some of us didn't like it." [Footnote A: _Pronounced "jung guo ren"._] * * * * * Cudyk opened the door. A few aliens were sitting at the round tables in the big outer room. Cudyk watched Harkway's face, and saw his eyes widen with shock. The Niori were something to see, the first time. They were tall and erect, and their anatomy was not even remotely like man's. They had six limbs each, two for walking, four for manipulation. Their bodies were covered by a pale, horny integument which grew in irregular sections, so that you could tell the age of a Niori by the width of the growth-areas between the plates of his armor. But you saw none of those things at first. You saw the two glowing violet eyes, set wide apart in a helmet-shaped head, and the startlingly beautiful markings on the smooth shell of the face--blue on pale cream, like an ancient porcelain tile. And you saw the crest--a curved, lucent shape that even in a lighted room glowed with its own frost-blue. No Niori ever walked in darkness. Cudyk guided Harkway toward the door at the far end of the room. "We'll see who's in the back room," he said. "There is usually a small gathering at this hour." The inner room was more brightly lit than the other. Down the center, in front of a row of empty booths, was a long table. Three men sat at one end of it, with teacups and a bowl of lichee nuts between them. They looked up as Cudyk and Harkway came in. "Gentlemen," said Cudyk, "may I present Mr. Harkway, who is here on a mission from the Minority People's League? Mr. Burgess, Father Exarkos, Mr. Ferguson." The three shook hands with Harkway, Father Exarkos smiling pleasantly, the other two with more guarded expressions. The priest was in his fifties, grey-haired, hollow-templed, with high orbital ridges and a square, mobile mouth. He said, in English oddly accented by a mixture of French and Greek, "Please sit down, both of you ... I understand that your first evening here has been not too pleasant, Mr. Harkway. I hope the rest of your stay will be more so."